A. Most certainly, if Paul speaks truth when he says concerning Him: ‘He is the Image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all creation, because in Him all things were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and all things hold together in Him. He is also the Head of the body, the Church; He is the Beginning, the Firstborn from the dead, so that He might be preeminent in everything.’ See, then—very plainly indeed—he says that the Image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all creation visible and invisible, through whom and in whom all things exist, has been given as Head to the Church and is also the Firstborn from the dead. For, as I said, He makes the properties of His own flesh His own, and ‘endured the cross, despising the shame.’ We do not say that some mere man, honored in some inexplicable way by conjunction with Him, was given for us. Rather, the Lord of glory Himself is the One who was crucified for us. ‘For if they had known,’ he says, ‘they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.’ According to the Scriptures, the One ‘who according to the flesh is from the Jews, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen,’ suffered in the flesh for us and on our behalf. This is how the most holy Paul, His herald and apostle, who had Christ Himself within him, wrote. And tell me this also: how would they understand what Christ said to the Samaritan woman, ‘You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews’? Yet it was not an elder or an angel who saved us, but the Lord Himself—not by another’s death or through the mediation of a mere man, but by His own blood. Therefore the all-wise Paul rightly said: ‘Anyone who rejected the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, regarded the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified as common, and insulted the Spirit of grace?’ But if the precious blood belongs not to the true Son who became man, but to some other spurious son who possesses sonship by grace, how can they say that it is not common blood? Thus even when He is said to have suffered in the flesh, His impassibility is preserved insofar as He is understood to be God. For the inspired Peter also says, ‘Christ once died for our sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, so that He might bring us to God, put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit.’ Why, one might ask, did this Spirit-bearing man not say simply and without qualification that He suffered, but add ‘in the flesh’? Because he knew—he knew that he was speaking about God. He therefore attributes impassibility to Him insofar as He is understood to be God, while very skillfully adding ‘in the flesh,’ in which the suffering takes place.
B. But they say that it sounds monstrous and leans far into the incredible to insist that the same One both suffered and did not suffer. Either, they say, He did not suffer at all because He is God; or, if He is said to have suffered, how can He be God? Therefore only the one from the seed of David can be understood as the one who suffered.
A. Yet how could choosing to say and think such things fail to be a very clear proof of a sluggish mind? God the Father did not give for us an ordinary man, taken up merely to serve as mediator, possessing a fabricated glory of sonship and honored through a merely relational conjunction. Rather, for our sake He gave the One who is above all creation, the Word who came forth from His own essence, when He became in a form like ours, so that He might be seen as a fitting equivalent for the life of all. It is, I think, utterly absurd that, once the Only-Begotten became flesh according to the Scriptures and did not disdain the dispensation, we should virtually rebuke Him as though He had fought against His own glory by choosing, improperly, to suffer in the flesh. But, my good friend, this was the salvation of the whole world. Since the One who by nature is God and therefore beyond the capacity for suffering chose for this reason to suffer, He clothed Himself in flesh capable of suffering and made it His own, so that the suffering too could be said to be His, because it was not someone else’s body but His own body that suffered. Therefore the manner of the dispensation allows us, without any blame attaching to Him, to say both that He chose to suffer in the flesh and that He did not suffer in His Godhead—for the same One was both God and man. Our opponents therefore speak pointlessly and, by most foolishly falsifying the power of the mystery, perhaps imagine that they are making the union more worthy of praise. His choosing at all to suffer in the flesh might have seemed to attach some reproach to Him, but in another respect it was glorious. For the resurrection testified that He is superior to death and corruption, since as God He is Life and life-giving: He raised His own temple. Therefore the inspired Paul says, ‘For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes’; and again, ‘For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God,’ while ‘to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.’ And the Son Himself, when He was about to ascend to the saving Passion, says, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in Him; and God will glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him at once.’ For He came to life again after despoiling Hades, and this not after a long interval, but, as it were, immediately on the heels of His suffering.
B. Yet the all-wise Paul says: ‘Since you seek proof that Christ is speaking in me—He is not weak, but powerful among you. For indeed He was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God.’ How, then, could anyone say that the Word Himself became weak and that He lives by the power of God?
A. Do we not say again and again that the Word of God became flesh and became man?
B. Yes. How could it be otherwise?
A. Therefore the One who was weak in the flesh insofar as He appeared as man lived by the power of God—not by a power foreign to Him, but by the power inherent in Him. For He was God in the flesh.
B. And yet the Father is said to have raised Him. For it is written: ‘According to the working of His mighty strength, which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above every rule and authority and lordship and every name that is named.’
A. But we say that He Himself is the life-giving power of the Father and, even after becoming flesh, it is fitting that He should glory in the dignities of the One who begot Him. He Himself will come forward as His own witness, saying, ‘For just as the Father gives life to whom He wills, so also the Son gives life to whom He wills.’ And since He could accomplish this very easily, He said to the crowds of the Jews, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ Yet the One who rose is seated at the Father’s right hand in the heavenly places, far above every rule and authority, throne and lordship, and every name that is named. Is He there, then, as another son besides the Word who came from the Father, honored by a bare conjunction and receiving the name of Godhead as a gift of grace? Or is He rather the One who is by nature and in truth the Son, who within the dispensation came in the likeness of men and was found in appearance as a man?
B. They would perhaps say that it is the man from the seed of David, conjoined to Him with equal honor, to whom the suffering of death properly belongs.
A. But something said to be equal in honor with another is not, as I already said, one in number with it, but one alongside another. These are two, I think, and unequal by nature, if the one being honored is in a lower condition than the one who honors it. Yet since one Son is seated there, let them teach us who it is that has been honored with the highest throne and sits together with the Father—especially since it would be among the most dangerous of errors to dare to raise the servant to equal honor with the Master, the creature with the Creator, what is under the yoke with the King of all, and what is numbered among all things with the One who is above them all.
B. Then explain this to us still more clearly.
A. Although, as I think, we have already worked out a clear and sufficient argument on these very points, I will without hesitation add still more to what I have said. Taking up a worthy defense of the sacred doctrines like a full suit of armor, I will set the truth against those who think perversely. That it was the Only-Begotten Word of God Himself who abolished the dominion of death—not through some other son besides Him who mediated the dispensation and was joined to Him merely by relation—He Himself confirms when He says, ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His Only-Begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.’ God the Father exalts His love for the world and declares it exceedingly great and beyond measure. Why, then, do our opponents diminish it by saying that it was not the true Son who was given for us, but one of those who are like us, possessing the grace of sonship by adoption, whom they elevate into the place of the Son by nature—when it was the Only-Begotten who was given for us? And since John plainly wrote, ‘The Only-Begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father,’ how could anyone fail to marvel at their ignorance? They thrust the Only-Begotten God the Word out of the dispensation and bring in instead, as I said, someone adorned with external honors and possessing the name of Godhead as something added from outside. What then remains great and worthy of wonder in the Father’s love if He gave for the world only some small part of the world itself? Perhaps one could even say, without reproach on their account, that the world has been redeemed without receiving anything from God, but only by having one of its own parts serve it for this purpose.
B. They say that the Only-Begotten was given by the Father in order to administer the things concerning us, not in order that He Himself should suffer any human thing in His own nature, for that is impossible.
A. In His own nature He would suffer nothing at all. For since He is incorporeal as God, He is certainly beyond suffering. But according to His own words, spoken through the lyre of the Psalmist, a body was prepared for Him by the Father, and He came embodied to do His will. This was the redemption through the precious cross and the recapitulation of all things, accomplished perfectly through Him and in Him. The excellent Paul supports what I have said when he writes: ‘Let each of you have this mind among yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be seized, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted Him and gave Him the name above every name, so that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’ Who, then, do you say is the One who existed in the form of God the Father and could have remained in equality with Him, yet did not regard this surpassing and God-befitting dignity and His preeminence over all as something to be grasped? Is it not God the Word who came forth from Him? How is this not obvious to everyone? This same One who was in the form and equality of the Father took the form of a servant, not by a merely relational conjunction; He came ‘in the likeness of men and was found in appearance as a man.’ For together with this He was also God. He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.
B. But, they say, it is said concerning Him that ‘God gave Him the name above every name, so that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow.’ How can the Word be understood to receive what He already was—namely, God? It is therefore necessary, they say, to affirm instead that the name above every name was given to the man who was assumed, so that we may not be found thinking anything unfitting about the Only-Begotten.
A. Then is it not incomparably better to say that this was given by the Father to the Son by nature when He became man for our sake, so that even in His humanity He might be understood as God, and that the One who endured our lowliness might still be in the highest heights? Otherwise a new and newly appearing god is introduced to angels and human beings, one who does not possess the glory of Godhead essentially within himself but has it bestowed from outside, as though it existed only by the will of God the Father.
B. Then we say that the name above every name was given to the Word Himself who came from God the Father?
A. Most certainly. And our argument does not depart from its proper aim, provided it is true that He ‘did not regard equality with God as something to be seized,’ yet in a certain sense descended into a condition without glory insofar as He appeared as man. For this reason He also said, ‘The Father is greater than I.’ Yet insofar as He is understood and is God, ever existing in the Father and begotten from Him by nature, it belongs to Him to be without any difference from the Father in every respect and to possess the glory of the Godhead. Therefore we must not suppose that the One who for our sake descended to the measure of humanity slipped away from the splendor and excellence that are His by nature. Rather, in the self-emptying that belongs to our condition He possessed divine fullness; in humiliation He possessed what is exalted; and what belongs to Him by nature—being worshiped by all—is spoken of as given to Him because of His humanity. For every knee in heaven and on earth bows to Him, and every order gives Him glory. Jesus Christ is confessed as Lord, to the glory of God the Father. He also said to the Father and God in heaven, ‘Father, glorify Me with the glory that I had with You before the world existed.’ Tell me, then: did the man whom they say the Only-Begotten assumed through a merely relational conjunction exist before the world?
B. Not at all.
A. Who, then, is the One asking for the glory that He says belonged to Him even before the foundation of the world, since He was always and continually with God? Is it not God the Word, co-eternal with the Father, sharing His throne and existing together with Him, concerning whom the all-wise Evangelist John says, ‘The Word was with God, and the Word was God’?
B. How could it be otherwise?
A. Just as He who is Lord of glory, after lowering Himself to the inglorious condition of a servant, asks to receive again the glory that was always inherent in Him—and does this in a manner fitting His humanity—so also, though He has always been God, He rises from the conditions of our state to the excellence and glory of His own Godhead. Thus every knee bows to one Son, the Son by nature and in truth, even though He became like us and was incarnate, as I said just now. By thinking and believing in this way, I believe, we will free heaven and earth from the charge of worshiping a mere man. For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him alone shall you serve.’
B. This argument will need a great deal of support. Go on, then, and make the mystery clearer to us through other lines of reasoning as well.